Food on the floor a problem for 2 Vail eateries in Restaurant Report Card

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EAGLE COUNTY, Colo. -- The FOX31 Problem Solvers went to the mountains for this week's Restaurant Report Card.

Moe’s Original Bar B Que - Vail

The inspector cited nine critical violations at the Vail restaurant in August.

The critical mistakes included employees not washing hands, using a common towel, a hand sink that was not accessible, cooked beans and chicken that were tossed for being held at the wrong temperature and hamburger buns stored on the floor.

The owner said all of the issues were fixed.

"It’s nonstop training every day to keep guys informed and make sure they are doing the right stuff," Ben Gilbert said. "We are not in the business of getting people sick. We have never had an incident and we don’t plan on it. We take these reports very seriously.”

The brew house scored 13 critical violations in its last two surprise inspections in August and January 2015.

The violations included the cook using a cloth hanging on their shoulder, bare hand use, food held at the wrong temperature and rice stored on the floor.

One of the new owners said they bought the restaurant in mid-January and the failed inspections were a surprise.

"These were prior to our group," Robert Plant said. "So my background is in food manufacturing and that will be our No. 1 priority to get that in line. Food safety and personal safety are our top two goals before anything else.”

The restaurant, located on the North Frontage Road, passed its follow-up inspection in August.

Blue Plate

The “A” goes to Blue Plate for a clean plate in Avon. The elegant eatery scored two health inspections in a row with no critical violations.

"It’s my same philosophy that I take with food," owner Adam Rouston said. "If you’re going to do it, do it right. If you are going to clean, clean properly.

"I told my crew, because we have special cleaning days on Saturday, we bring in a couple of extra guys, we rip everything apart and I said, all the hard work over the last nine years, the scrubbing and cleaning does pay off.”

How restaurants appear on our Ski Town Report Card

The criteria FOX31 Denver uses to give a restaurant a failing grade includes the evaluation of two unannounced inspections by county health inspectors. A failing restaurant must have five or four critical violations on their most recent regular inspection and five or four critical violations on the previous regular inspection. The restaurant may also fail for nine or ten or more violations in one inspection. Health inspectors may conduct critical or follow-up inspections, due to the number of critical violations found during a regular inspection. Those inspections may also be considered for our reports. We recognize restaurants with two perfect regular inspections in a row by awarding them an A.

An inspection is a “snapshot” of what is happening during the day and time of the inspection. On any given day, a restaurant could have more or fewer violations than noted in an inspection. Also, at the time of an inspection, violations are recorded and can be corrected prior to the inspector leaving the restaurant. If violations are not corrected, a follow-up inspection is scheduled.